In my line of direct ancestors is Andrew Sawyer Ashmore. He was my 3rd great grandfather.

I don't know where the middle name came from, although some records and other family trees indicate he favored the name enough that he called himself Sawyer. Sawyer Ashmore's mother was Mary Henderson, so it wasn't a case of carrying on the maternal surname.

Here's what I do know about Sawyer Ashmore.

He was born in 1798 (probably in Lawrence Co., TN) to Joshua Ashmore and Mary Henderson.

About 1815, he married Elizabeth McCarley (whose parents are unknown to me) in Lawrence County.

He and his father were listed on the Lawrence County tax list in 1826.

Apparently, he was not old enough to vote in 1818, because only his father was listed in the Lawrence County list of registered voters that year.

In 1838, Sawyer and Elizabeth, along with his younger brother, Robert, and two younger sisters - Cynthia Ann (Burris), and Lucinda (Carrell), moved to Pope County, AR. Members of Elizabeth McCarley's family also made the same trip, as did Sawyer's 78 year old father, Joshua. I have a visual image of the elder Ashmore being helped up into an ox drawn wagon.

Sawyer and Elizabeth Ashmore had four, and possibly five, children, one of whom was my great great grandmother, Elizabeth Adeline Ashmore.

He farmed 170 acres of land in what was Conway County, AR (but is now Pope County) for 15 years prior to his death on 9 Oct 1853.

He was buried in the McCarley Family Cemetery, not far from where my dad lives now.

This is not the original gravestone, and Elizabeth's date of death -3 Nov 1875, must not have been known by the descendants who placed it.